A government taskforce has been criss-crossing the globe in recent months, looking at nuclear power plants, research laboratories and uranium enrichment facilities. It was appointed by Prime Minister John Howard to examine nuclear power and uranium mining. Curiously, it did not set foot on Chinese soil - despite the fact that, if Australia decides to lift current restrictions on uranium mining, China will be a major beneficiary. It has long been one of life's ironies that Australia, endowed with almost 40 per cent of the world's known uranium deposits, has no nuclear-power industry, and the production of uranium is restricted by law to three mines. But Mr Howard is a fervent believer in nuclear energy as part of the suite of solutions to global warming, so Australia seems highly likely to liberalise its uranium mining rules. That is what the taskforce recommended in the draft report it released this week. Beijing will no doubt be encouraged by such signals coming from Australia. Along with India, China is in the world spotlight in any discussion about global warming. Beijing knows that it must drastically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions over the next decade, and nuclear power is a major element in meeting this aim. As the taskforce report notes, China is proposing to build 63 nuclear-power reactors by 2020. To do that, it needs a constantly growing supply of uranium from reliable and stable countries like Australia. The report says that if new mines were allowed to open, then Australia's uranium exports could double in value from the current A$573 million (HK$3.43 billion) by 2015. A major destination of these increased exports would be China: its demand for uranium is forecast to grow from about 70,000 tonnes to more than 80,000 in the next 10 years. Australia signed a deal with Beijing in April to supply 20,000 tonnes of uranium a year to help meet China's nuclear power needs. That agreement raised eyebrows in some circles, particularly in the US, because of fears that some Australian uranium might be diverted to China's nuclear weapons programme. But the Australian government went ahead anyway. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a leading think-tank, Australians should not be afraid of increasing uranium exports to China over the next decade. Beijing is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, 'despite past transgressions, now has a much-improved record on countering proliferation', the institute said recently. But the present Australia-China uranium export deal is making some people nervous in Washington. So it remains to be seen if they would be happy with a vastly expanded nuclear relationship between the two countries - one involving exchanges of technology and expertise, direct Chinese investment in Australian uranium mines and a major increase in the volume of uranium exports from Australia to China. Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Non-Proliferation Policy Centre, says Australia may already be assisting China to expand its nuclear weapons capability through the existing agreement. 'I think anyone would be naive to think that you haven't made it easier for China to ramp up its nuclear weapons capacity, at a time of its choosing,' Mr Sokolski said in April. No doubt, if the Americans pressure Australia to slow down its nuclear embrace of China, this would test the capacity of Mr Howard's government to continue the balancing act. So far, that act has enabled it to maintain its status as one of America's most reliable allies while transforming its relationship with China. Greg Barns is a political commentator in Australia and a former Australian government adviser